Revelation Study

Revelation Study — Chapter 12

Introduction to this section

Jerusalem is destroyed. The temple is as Jesus said it would be: "Not one stone left upon another." Hundreds of thousands of Jews killed, enslaved and scattered about the country. Now the revelation depicts the conflict between the forces of good and evil and the eventual triumph of the good, the triumphant church.

Micah 3:12 "Therefore shall Zion for your sake be plowed as a field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps, and the mountain of the house as the high places of the forest."

Revelation 12:1 "And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars:"

This was a heavenly vision; a spiritual scene. She was clothed in light; the sun, the moon; all the sources of light. The crown of 12 stars probably representing the 12 tribes of Israel.

Vs 2 "And she being with child cried, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered."

Who is the woman? Controversy abounds concerning her identity. We go back to the beginning of the conflict. A curse was placed on the serpent, which evidently symbolized Satan. An earthly conflict which was not settled in the garden of Eden. Notice Genesis 3:15: "And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel." The conflict began there and we will follow it to its climax. Notice also Galatians 4:4: "But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law," Man had nothing to do with this pregnancy or of this birth. It was altogether woman. So now we see the woman. Is it Mary? Not in the literal sense. The woman is Israel, indicated by the 12 stars and God is her husband. The promise to Abraham was being fulfilled: "In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed." Israel was preserved as a nation to bring forth the redeemer. (Please read Isaiah 54.)

Vss 3-4 "And there appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads. 4 And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth: and the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born."

The dragon is later on identified as Satan. He has great power. In fact his rulership is practically universal. The seven crowned heads indicate his victorious and complete rulership. He is identified as "prince of this world" in John 12:31; the "prince of devils" in Matthew 12:24. Later on the ten horns will be identified as ten kings through which much of his destructive work is done. He stood ready to devour the child as soon as it was born. He made his greatest attempt to destroy the new born child through his emissary, Herod, but that failed.

Vss 5-6 "And she brought forth a man child, who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron: and her child was caught up unto God, and to his throne. And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of God, that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and threescore days."

This rulership of the man child, who of course is the Christ, the redeemer, would begin when he is caught up to sit at God's right hand. David had prophesied of his "rod of iron" rulership of the nations in Psalms 2:6-9. We now have a transition. The woman, "God's holy seed" of the nation of physical Israel has become the "holy seed" of spiritual Israel. God will preserve her in this great battle which finally destroys Jerusalem. He makes a way of escape for the elect out of Jerusalem and they are cared for on the east side of Jordan. The Roman war against Jerusalem was 42 months or 1260 days or 3 1/2 years or time, times and half a time. Verses 7-13 are kind of parenthetical for we take up the same flight of the woman in verse 14.

Vss 7-9 "And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, And prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven. And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him."

Heaven, in this verse, doesn't mean God's dwelling place, but the "high place" Satan had ruled over for many years. He was cast out of his high place when Jesus was resurrected and made atonement for the sins of the Old Testament worthies and those who would serve him under the New Testament. We have no details of the battle between Michael and Satan. All we know is that Michael was victorious. He was, with his angels, going to do battle with the saints on earth. (See Romans 7:23-25 and other places which tell of our escape from the bondage of Satan.)

Vss 10-11 "And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night. And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death."

The victory of these saints and of all saints is by the blood of the Lamb as they overcome sin and win their battle with the word, the sword of the Spirit.

Vs 12 "Therefore rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them. Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea! for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time."

The faithful of the Old Testament can rejoice. Their sins have been forgiven and Satan cannot use that against them. He must fight his fight on the living. His original plan was for eternal rulership but that has been taken from him by the blood of the Lamb. He must wage his warfare with those on earth and this battle will not be for eternity but for time and time was and is running out.

Vs 13 "And when the dragon saw that he was cast unto the earth, he persecuted the woman which brought forth the man child."

Satan's domain was now earthly beings and these earthly beings were the ones who were not already serving him. This woman represented the church. The first churches were made up of Jews and Satan was using their Jewish brethren as his ministers. They were the instruments of persecution the first few years of the church. About 62 or 64 A.D. Roman persecution under Nero was instigated.

Vs 14 "And to the woman were given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness, into her place, where she is nourished for a time, and times, and half a time, from the face of the serpent."

The story of the woman of verse six is now taken up again. In verse 13 she was being persecuted. Now she is among the Jewish saints caught up in the Jerusalem war. The faithful ones were now being overwhelmed by the seditious and rebellious Jews but God had given the elect a sign concerning a time of escape and an avenue of escape so the Christians, the church, the woman fled hastily, on eagles wings, into the wilderness.

(Matthew 24:15-16) "When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso readeth, let him understand:) Then let them which be in Judaea flee into the mountains:"

Vss 15-16 "And the serpent cast out of his mouth water as a flood after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away of the flood. 16 And the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed up the flood which the dragon cast out of his mouth."

Old Satan was using every available means to destroy the woman, the church and likely, had these Jerusalem saints been destroyed, the church would have been in greater jeopardy than they were. But miraculously they were protected and not one perished. The word "earth" is used sometimes to signify the Jews or their part of the earth -- Palestine; sometimes it is used for the elements; sometimes it is used to indicate the whole of mankind. However it is used in this verse is rather irrelevant as something was used by God to preserve this woman from the flood of persecution.

Vs 17 "And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ."

Satan sees his best chance of completely destroying the nucleus of the church, the strong part, the Jerusalem, the saints going awry and he is wroth. Now he takes up the warfare against the remnant, the rest of the Jewish Christians and the Gentile saints in other places. So the warfare will continue